Forest River Charleston
System Schematic
Basic Parts List
- 4 - Repurposed Tesla Battery Modules
- Victron Quattro 5000 watt hybrid inverter charger
- Victron BMV 712
- 3 - Victron MPPT 100/50 Smart Solar charge controllers with built in Bluetooth
- Victron VE.Bus Smart Dongle – allows Bluetooth connectivity to Quatro
- Various Victron RJ-45 and VE Direct Cables
- Victron Lynx Distributor
- Various Victron Mega Fuses for Lynx Distributor
- 8 AWG Dual PV Cable from combiner box to Solar Controllers
- 4 AWG Welding Cable from Solar Controllers to Breakers and then Bus Bars
- 2/0 Welding Cable from Bus Bars after Solar Controllers to Lynx Distributor
- 4/0 Welding Cable - between batteries & Lynx and between Quattro & Lynx
- 12 - Renogy 175 watt flexible Solar Panels
- Aluminum track adhered to roof with VHB tape and panels bolted to track
- 2 - Victron Orion 24 to 12 70 amp High Power DC to DC converters
- Victron Cerbo GX
- Victron Touch 50 display
- Blue Sea 3000 Battery Switch HD On/Off
- 3 - Blue Sea resettable 60amp DC breakers
- Midnite Solar Baby Box
- Various Breakers for Midnite Solar Baby Box
- Red Dual Wall Shrink Tubing
- Black Dual Wall Shrink Tubing
- Various 4/0 Tinned Copper Lugs
- Various 2/0 Tinned Copper Lugs
- Various 4 AWG Tinned Copper Lugs
- MC4 Male/Female Solar Panel Cable Connectors
- 10 AWG PV Cable to interconnect solar panels
- AM Solar Combiner Box
- Portable Cord Soow 6/4 6 awg 4 Conductor between built in EMS and Inverter
- Baomain manual 50 amp combiner switch
- Victron Smart Battery Protect
- Atkinson Electronics GSCM Mini
- Miscellaneous parts, sealants, breakers, and connectors
Installation Notes
This installation was completed in August of 2021. The owner of this Diesel Pusher found me through an on line RV Solar forum. He accumulated most of the parts for the installation on his own before contacting me. Once he had the parts in place, he decided the installation was not something he wanted to tackle on his own. He brought his rig to me to complete the installation. I worked on it on and off over a few weeks. The complete installation took about 8 days. This was a 24 volt system because of the use of the Tesla battery modules. Integrating the 24 volt house system with the 12 volt chassis system was accomplished with two Victron Energy Orion 24/12-70 high power DC to DC converters. No BMS was installed on this system. The customer designed the system based on Mortons on the Move and their original Tesla battery based system. Based on that design, the relay in the BMV 712 was going to be used to open contacts in the Victron Energy Smart BatteryProtect. With the use of a DPST switch, the relay could disconnect the batteries based on temperature readings or voltage readings. Unfortunately, the customer ordered the wrong switch so I was not able to install this, but everything was in place for the customer to do it once he obtained the correct switch. The customer also wanted to power the entire rig from the single 5000 watt Quatro inverter. The inverter was installed in line ahead of the main power panel and a Baomain manual switch was used to combine L1 and L2 when on inverter power so the inverter could power both legs of the panel. The customer previously installed Easy Starts on all three air conditioners to lower their initial power draw on start up. There was a lot of trial and error on this system trying to get everything to fit in the various compartments on this RV. Ultimately I was able to make it all work and fit, but it was not an easy task. Trying to run wire on this particular rig was a nightmare due to limited access and the physical height of the frame. Also, unrelated to the work I was doing, the RV began to have starting issues and would not start at all for several days. It turned out a solenoid on the starter was going bad and causing the issue. Luckily some tweaking to the solenoid got things working again. Overall this is a very robust system. I don’t know that I would have designed a system exactly like this, but I was happy to help my customer bring his design to life.